Katrina vanden Heuvel: Why I Care About Citizens United

Media

The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. FEC continues to be hugely unpopular. A poll taken again this year showed Americans opposed unlimited campaign spending by corporations or unions by a margin of 2:1.

Still, our servile media don't come close to expressing how deeply people feel about money in politics. Perhaps that's because the profit-driven media who cover the race feed at the same corporate trough as the candidates.

To fill the gap, we've cut a series of short interviews with pro-democracy activists in which they talk not just about what's wrong, but why Citizens United moves them to act. Here, the Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel talks about what she learned from her father and how independent media can help build democracy. Check out the whole series and feel free to share, record your own, comment. These interviews were originally recorded in the spring of 2011 by GRITtv for Free Speech For People.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Best-selling author and broadcaster Laura Flanders is the "strong local economies" fellow at Yes! Magazine and a contributing writer to The Nation. She hosts "The Laura Flanders Show" on GRITtv, an independent source for in-depth interviews with forward thinking people. Sign up to receive the latest at GRITtv.org or facebook.com/grittv. On Twitter, she's @GRITlaura.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Why I Care About Citizens United

Media

The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. FEC continues to be hugely unpopular. A poll taken again this year showed Americans opposed unlimited campaign spending by corporations or unions by a margin of 2:1.

Still, our servile media don't come close to expressing how deeply people feel about money in politics. Perhaps that's because the profit-driven media who cover the race feed at the same corporate trough as the candidates.

To fill the gap, we've cut a series of short interviews with pro-democracy activists in which they talk not just about what's wrong, but why Citizens United moves them to act. Here, the Nation's Katrina vanden Heuvel talks about what she learned from her father and how independent media can help build democracy. Check out the whole series and feel free to share, record your own, comment. These interviews were originally recorded in the spring of 2011 by GRITtv for Free Speech For People.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Best-selling author and broadcaster Laura Flanders is the "strong local economies" fellow at Yes! Magazine and a contributing writer to The Nation. She hosts "The Laura Flanders Show" on GRITtv, an independent source for in-depth interviews with forward thinking people. Sign up to receive the latest at GRITtv.org or facebook.com/grittv. On Twitter, she's @GRITlaura.